Tainted Love

by Tabatha Drake

  I eye his fingers, thick and rock solid, before reaching out and shaking his hand again. He takes mine in his grip and squeezes hard to counter the one I gave him before. I steal my hand back before I let it linger too long in his but I can’t manage to do the same with our eyes. Even he stares at me. Unblinking and amused. As if he knows something I don’t.

  Finally, he glides around me and opens the door.

  “After you, Ms. Vaughn.”

  Chapter 2

  Dante

  I never back down from a challenge.

  Especially not one as interesting as Lucy Vaughn.

  “So, what do you do, Mr. Hart?”

  “Dante,” I correct with a grin. “Why do you ask if you already know?”

  She shifts in the passenger’s seat with her arms crossed and her eyes boring into me. “Professional curiosity,” she says.

  “What professional curiosity does a ballerina have for a two-bit gangster?”

  “You said you weren’t in my father’s office tonight to collect money,” she points out. “You must have been there for some other reason, why?”

  “I was sent there to kill him.”

  She pauses but only for a soft moment. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re just gonna throw that out there?” she asks. “No lead-up? No hesitation?”

  I chuckle. “You obviously already knew that, Lucy—”

  “Ms. Vaughn.”

  “—or else you wouldn’t have agreed to come.”

  “Well, yeah, my dad says people are gonna kill him all the time, but I never believe him.”

  I glance at her. “There’s a first time for everything.”

  “Hm.” She sits back in her seat and stares forward at the crowded, city streets.

  I let her sit there, silently stewing in her head. She’ll break eventually. Soon, that professional curiosity will turn into something a bit more personal and I’ll have her in my sights. I just have to sit and let it happen.

  Anytime now.

  She stays quiet until we reach my brownstone. I hop out with the intention of walking around and opening her door for her, but she’s already stepped her foot out by the time I close my own door. We climb the stairs while I reach into my pocket for my keys. She stays a few paces behind me to maintain that personal bubble around herself.

  I open the door and step to the side. “After you, Lucy.”

  She glares at me for using her name again before stepping forward. I take a look around, scanning the street for any obvious signs of being followed. It’s an old habit, but it comes in handy.

  I follow her in to find her staring upward in the foyer. Her green eyes dance up and down the staircase in the dark.

  “Would you like a drink?” I offer.

  “No.”

  I smile and walk around her, keeping my distance as I head into the back of the house toward the kitchen. She follows with soft feet, just barely grazing the floor by the sound of it. My training kicks in and I spend the trip down the hall mapping out her feet along the floorboards behind me. Maybe I should have taken up dancing. I probably would have been better at stealth myself.

  I grab two Old Fashioned glasses from the cupboard.

  “I said I didn’t want a drink.”

  I twist the cap off a bottle of whiskey and pour a bit into both glasses.

  “Mr. Hart—”

  “Dante.”

  “I don’t drink alcohol.”

  I hold one glass out to her. “You do tonight, Lucy.”

  “Ms. Vaughn.”

  I smirk as she stares up at me, her eyes growing weaker by the second. “Please, Ms. Vaughn. It’d be a shame to drink alone.”

  I lay the glass down in front of her before taking a small sip from mine.

  “Do you live alone?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Hm.” She snatches the glass from the counter and looks at it for several moments before bringing it to her lips.

  “Why?” I ask, giving in to my curiosity.

  She shrugs and her black blouse opens slightly to expose a little more of the pale skin of her chest. “Place seems pretty big for one person.”

  “I like my space.”

  She chuckles into her glass. “I bet you do.”

  “Come with me.”

  Her eyes bounce at the sudden request, but she instantly spins on her toes to follow me back out into the foyer and around the corner to the living room. I pause by the fireplace and bend over to grab wood off the pile.

  “Oh, so this is your plan.” She sits on the arm of the sofa and stares at me.

  “My plan?”

  “Yeah, your plan. Make it all warm and cozy in here. Slink in closer and closer, whispering sweet crap in my ear…”

  “It’s cold,” I point out.

  “How convenient.”

  “Ms. Vaughn, I don’t have a master plan. If I did, it would simply include sitting here, with you, getting to know each other over a game of cards.”

  “Cards?”

  I reach into a box above the fireplace and pull out a deck of blue playing cards. “I assume the daughter of a serial gambler knows a thing or two about poker?”

  Her eyebrow twitches. “She does.”

  I toss the deck at her and she catches it perfectly with her free hand. “Shuffle up while I get a fire started.”

  I lower down, listening closely to her movements while I stack the wood. She slides the cards out and sifts through the deck to pull out the jokers before splitting it and shuffling the stacks together. My ears twitch at the tight, swishing sound of cards toppling together in her small hands.

  I strike a match and light the ends of several loose papers inside to ignite the wood. It catches quickly and I sit on the floor beside it with my drink. The warmth tingles my fingers as I wait patiently to see what little Lucy Vaughn will do next.

  Eventually, her feet shuffle over and she sits across from me at the other side of the fireplace. “Five-card stud,” she says, laying her drink down beside her. “None of that sissy hold-em crap.”

  “Whatever you want, Ms. Vaughn.”

  Lucy reaches for her purse and fishes around the bottom for some coins. “Ante’s a quarter,” she says, dropping a silver coin on the floor between us.

  I grin a little wider as I rifle through my own pockets for change. She deals our hands while her soft eyes flick up at me between card tosses. My cards settle in a small pile next to me and I wait until she takes her hand before taking mine.

  Ace of clubs, king of diamonds. The rest is trash.

  “How long have you been dancing?” I ask her.

  “Since I was six,” she answers, her eyes stuck on her cards.

  “Sixteen years. That’s a long time.” I set the three trash cards between us. “Three, please.”

  Lucy looks over at me as her wrist flicks three new cards into a small pile. “How did you know how old I was?” she asks as she drops the pile in front of me.

  “I asked your father,” I explain, taking the cards. Ace of hearts but the rest is worthless. “Have you always wanted to dance?”

  “Yes. Dealer takes two.” She discards and takes two new cards for herself. “Did he tell you anything else about me?”

  “No.” I watch her eyes carefully for any tells. She doesn’t glance away from her cards, not even a single look in my direction to check me for tells. Definitely not an amateur. “Only that you were everything he had.” I grab two quarters from my pile and set them between us.

  She scoffs and adds three quarters to the pot, raising my bet. “Unfortunately, that’s probably true.”

  “Is it?”

  “Well, you’re a Zappia,” she says, glancing over her cards. “I’m assuming the family knows more about his losses than I do.”

  “I’m not a Zappia.”

  “You’re not?”

  I shake my head before laying my hand down, revealing my cards. “Pair of aces.”

  Lucy stares
at me. “Why do you work for the Zappia family if you’re not family?”

  “They pay well.”

  She lays down her hand. “Two pair.”

  I check her cards. Queens and threes. “Not bad.”

  She pushes the cards over to me and I pick them up to shuffle them. “How long have you worked for them?” she asks as she gathers her winnings.

  “A few months.”

  “And they already trust you enough to go out and kill deadbeat gamblers?”

  I split the deck and shuffle it with quick fingers. “I had a good résumé. Ante up.”

  She tosses a quarter between us. “Who did you work for before the Zappia family?”

  I smile with tight lips while dealing five cards at her. “How did we go from your dancing career to my work history?”

  She takes her cards and snaps her fingers at me. “Keep up, Mr. Hart.”

  “Dante.”

  “I’m not calling you that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because first names are informal.”

  “You’re sitting on my floor, drinking whiskey, and playing cards. If that’s not informal, I’d love to know what you think this is.”

  She flicks three cards into the center. “Three, please.”

  I pull three cards from the deck and set them between us, allowing for my fingers to linger above them. She reaches out but quickly halts before her fingertips graze mine. Her eyes fire back at me, savvy and cold. I slide my hand away and she snatches the cards off the floor.

  “This,” she says, “is a formal meeting.”

  “A meeting?” I chuckle.

  “Yes, a meeting.”

  “And just what order of business do we have on the schedule today, Ms. Vaughn?”

  “Kicking your punk ass at poker, for starters.”

  I laugh then realize I haven’t pulled my eyes away from hers to look at my new hand yet. I check it quickly. Two jacks, two fours, and an eight. My brow twitches.

  “Dealer takes one.”

  I trade the card with a new one, feeling her attention on me the whole time. My eyes fall to my cards. I pulled a third jack. Full house.

  Lucy reaches into her pile of money and slides one dollar into the pot. I stare at her and she doesn’t even blink.

  “You don’t seem to be very good at this,” she notes. “Perhaps Go Fish is more your game?”

  I flex my jaw and add one dollar and twenty-five cents to the pot.

  Her lips curl. “I raise,” she says, her smooth voice charging down my spine as she drops another dollar fifty in.

  She can’t possibly have a hand better than a full house.

  “I call.” I meet her bet and lay my cards down.

  Her eyes flick to the floor between us and she smirks. “Not bad.”

  I gesture to her cards. “Let’s see ‘em.”

  Lucy holds the cards close to her chest. “Mr. Hart, why did you arrange this?” she asks.

  “Arrange what?”

  “This informal gathering.”

  “Seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “Zappia sent you to kill my father. Instead, you let him go and take his daughter home. That doesn’t exactly scream faithful employee to me.”

  I study her eyes, hard yet expressive. “I saw an opportunity to make some cash on the side, so I took it.”

  “Why would you need to if the Zappia family pays as well as you claim they do?”

  I pause. “Lucy—”

  “Ms. Vaughn. What would Mr. Zappia do if he found out you were playing good Samaritan to those he means to make an example of?”

  I bite my lip. “Are you concerned for my well-being?”

  “No, I just have a keen sense for bullshit.”

  “Lucy—”

  “Ms. V—”

  “Lucy, I did you and your father a very risky favor tonight. Others would be grateful.”

  “Others might be more than happy to bend over for the gangsters of this city, Mr. Hart. I’m not.”

  “I’m not a gangster.”

  “Then, what are you?”

  “I’m a killer who took the night off to play cards with you.” She twitches at the word. “Show me your hand, Lucy Vaughn.”

  She inhales a deep breath while I stare at the cards pressed against her small, rising chest. Finally, she tosses them down and my eyes fall to the floor.

  A straight flush. Hearts.

  My jaw drops. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  Lucy smiles and raises her glass to her pink lips. “Do you have any twos, Mr. Hart?”

  Chapter 3

  Lucy

  “Well, I must say, Ms. Vaughn. You’ve impressed me.”

  I grin behind my drinking glass. “And I must say, Mr. Hart… you’ve disappointed me.”

  Dante stares at me with narrow eyes and I look at the fire to keep from getting entranced again. How long has it been since we sat down here? An hour? Two? If the empty whiskey bottle and the large stack of cash next to my knee are any indication, it’s been a long while.

  “Poker hasn’t always been my game,” he admits.

  “Oh, you don’t have to make excuses for yourself.” I chuckle. “I certainly won’t.”

  He presses his lips together, but his wondrous blue eyes show no annoyance at all. It’s almost sickening. “Where did you learn to play like this?” he asks.

  I shrug. “My father taught me.”

  He shakes his head. “No, your father is in gambling debt up to his eyeballs. He never wins. This came from somewhere else…”

  “The rules I learned from him,” I say. “The rest… well, watch a man make the same mistakes repeatedly and you tend to learn from them yourself.”

  Dante nods and leans back against the edge of the fireplace. I pretend not to notice his gaze tracing a line from my toes to my neck and down again. The heat of the fire strikes my face, blending with the stiff drink to tamper with my resolve.

  Who is this man anyway? Stunning blue eyes. Strong physique. Handsome as fuck. How did a man like this end up working for the worst crime family in all of Chicago?

  “Dance for me.”

  I blink. “What?”

  “Dance for me,” he says again. “Please.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t work for free.”

  He shrugs. “I’ll pay you.”

  “I doubt you’d appreciate it, Mr. Hart. You don’t exactly seem cultured.”

  “I might surprise you.”

  My toes twitch. “There’s no music.”

  “Imagine it,” he says, leaning forward. “Please, Ms. Vaughn. Just one dance.”

  I bring my glass to my lips and take a healthy sip. The alcohol trembles my throat, dulling my nerves but my heart keeps skipping.

  “Fine,” I say, setting down the empty glass.

  Dante sits back against the wall, victorious and bold, while I stand up and kick off my shoes. I wiggle my toes against the floor, tricking my blood into awakening them. I haven’t felt nervous on a stage since I was ten years old but, for some reason, that forgotten sensation lingers on me now.

  My feet shift into fifth position, with my left heel attached to my right toes. I close my eyes, searching my brain for a bit of music to play but I can’t seem to find one. His eyes… they’re far too distracting.

  I spin around, putting my back to him before trying again. Mozart. That’ll do, I suppose. With my eyes closed, I let the song play out and my body moves to every note. Glissade, coupé jeté, pas de chat. I free flow, making it all up as I go. My head spins, drunk on whiskey and stage-fright.

  I spin on a pirouette and stop, finally opening my eyes to witness his reaction.

  Dante jaw sags but he quickly closes it. “You’re very talented, Ms. Vaughn,” he says, his voice a low growl.

  I clear my throat. “Thank you.”

  My heart pounds in my chest.
I try to hold my breath but it’s not nearly as calming as I’d like it to be.

  “Are you all right?” he asks, reading the signs all too clear.

  “Of course.” I look at my feet while I swipe my right toes across the hardwood floor in a quick rond de jambe. “I dance all the time.”

  “Not like this…” His teeth rake across his bottom lip. “I highly doubt private dances are the norm for you.”

  “You assume too much, Mr. Hart.”

  He tilts his head. “Am I wrong?”

  I fill my lungs. “I guess not. Men are usually more interested in how far back over my head I can lift my legs as opposed to how talented I am.”

  “How far back can you lift your legs?”

  “You’ll never know.”

  He smiles wide and stands up off the floor with both of our empty glasses. His cologne touches my nose as he passes by, forcing me to keep my attention on him.

  “You’re a touch too confident about that, I think,” he whispers, leaning in within an inch of my ear.

  My hairs stand on end and bristle with disappointment as he widens the gap between us on his way to the kitchen.

  I lean against the archway between the living room and the hall, listening closely to his movements. The refrigerator opens and closes. Fresh cubes of ice drop in the glasses. He comes back several moments later with our glasses refilled.

  “Still trying to get me drunk, Mr. Hart?” I ask. “That’s cheating.”

  His face comes into view from the shadowed hall and he looks down at me with a smirk touching his lips. “Just loosening that tongue of yours, Ms. Vaughn.”

  “Like you give a crap about what a girl has to say.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  He holds out my glass using his fingertips alone, leaving more than enough room for me to retrieve it without coming close to touching his fingers.

  I grab the bottom with a trembling hand. My body screams, reacting to his startling eyes. I try to look away, but I can’t bring myself to move. Part of me wishes for his hand to graze mine, just so I can know what his skin feels like other than a professional handshake. His hands look thick and rough. Strong like a carpenter who builds his own furniture. I try to imagine what he’s done with those fingers… and what he’s capable of doing with them.